The New Aarhus Regulation and the Defensive Behaviour of the European Legislator

Abstract

The European Union implemented the Aarhus Convention for European institutions and bodies by means of Regulation 1367/2006. This Regulation, however, did not ensure the full compliance of European law with the Convention provisions regarding access to justice, since it was very restrictive as to who was granted the right to request the review of acts allegedly infringing environmental law, the acts for which such review could be requested, and access to justice was ensured through an administrative procedure that did not comply with the principle of fairness. Due to these shortcomings, Regulation 2021/1767 amended Regulation 1367/2006, successfully addressing the first two compliance issues, but leaving the question of the fairness of the review mechanism unresolved. This article has two aims: first, to illustrate the main changes made by Regulation 2021/1767, and second, to show that the European legislator could provide for access to justice in environmental matters through review mechanisms that are fully in line with the standards required by the Aarhus Convention. This would be possible given that the provisions of the Treaty on administrative remedies are fairly flexible.